FEMA disputes Government Center mold levels

Saturday

May 5, 2012 at 2:00 AM

A report by federal inspectors disputes Orange County's claims of extensive mold in the Government Center and suggests that two severe storms that prompted County Executive Ed Diana to close the complex in September actually caused little damage.

BY CHRIS MCKENNA

A report by federal inspectors disputes Orange County's claims of extensive mold in the Government Center and suggests that two severe storms that prompted County Executive Ed Diana to close the complex in September actually caused little damage.

The report, provided to the Times Herald-Record Thursday in response to a federal Freedom of Information Act request, offers no estimate for the repair costs, but says the government would help the county pay only for limited mold removal and the replacement of carpeting, drywall and electrical equipment that were damaged when water leaked into the building.

Many other damage claims were declared ineligible for reimbursement because the inspectors concluded that the storms hadn't caused them.

The findings add new fuel to the continuing debate over whether to renovate or replace the 42-year-old complex. Diana has been pushing for two years for a new building, but came up three votes short on Thursday when county lawmakers voted on the initial funding he sought for a $75 million project.

Specialists from the Federal Emergency Management Agency inspected the Government Center over six days in January and wrote their report in February. When they gave it to the county is unclear; it wasn't shown to the Legislature before Thursday's vote.

County spokeswoman Orysia Dmytrenko said Friday that the report was a draft and that "a team of experts" was studying it to "maximize the county's anticipated benefits." She said the administration will share FEMA's findings with the Legislature once they're final.

The report sharply questions the work of Environmental Management Solutions of NY, a company Diana hired after Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee to test the Government Center for mold.

A FEMA mold specialist, Ronald Ginste, contends that the consultant used two inappropriate methods to evaluate air samples, and misapplied a more valid technique by failing to compare the amount of mold detected inside the building with the naturally occurring levels found outside. Such a comparison, he said, would have shown that "the indoor concentrations were less than the outdoor concentrations," except in one area.

He also faulted the consultant for banging on walls to loosen mold before sampling the air behind them.

"Vibration has the effect of artificially elevating spore counts," he wrote. "It is therefore unclear whether some of the elevated counts are due to active mold growth or the agitation of the walls."

According to the report, FEMA would help pay to remove about 1,200 square feet of "widely scattered" mold, most of it on the third floor and attributed to roof leaks. But it won't pay to clean the building's air ducts — which were already dirty — or to remove mold blamed on a 2009 remodelling.

Nor will FEMA pay to replace walls, carpeting and ceilings in the district attorney's office.

"There was no evidence to suggest the area had been subjected to floodwaters," the report reads.

All told, a team of consultants working for the county calculated last year that the storms had caused $10.5 million in damage to the building. But that included such items as roof repairs, and the FEMA report concludes "the roof is basically in the same condition as it was prior to the storms."

FEMA's observations about "deferred maintenance" support the notion that the building has been allowed to deteriorate, as renovation supporters have argued. The report also flatly contradicts the consultants' insistence that the outside walls be replaced — the single biggest cost in their $67.2 million renovation estimate, which Diana and others have used to justify a new building.

"The vertical walls were not exposed to the third-floor flooding (and) showed little water absorption or staining and do not need to be replaced," the report states.

But both sides in the Government Center debate may find support for their arguments in this line: "The condition of the building exterior appears to indicate questionable construction quality, poor design detailing and a long history of poor maintenance practices."

cmckenna@th-record.com

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